1. Field
The present disclosure relates to running a website service, and more particularly, to posting comments on other posted information in a website.
2. Discussion of the Related Technology
With the advances in Internet-based technologies related to distributing and sharing all kinds of information, numerous Internet portal sites enthusiastically provide information in text, image or moving picture format with regard to books, online dictionary, local, news, shopping, etc. Also, nowadays in the Internet environment, users get actively involved in making or posting comments on such information. Particularly, as to an Internet news service, users are provided with not only news articles or press releases from all media companies, but also user feedbacks such as comments posted by other users regarding certain news articles or press releases. The term ‘comments’ used herein can be understood as all and any types of information created by users about information or contents. Here, the information or contents are typically contained in a webpage of the Internet service allowing its users to post comments, although not necessary. Also, the information or contents could be user posted ones. Typically, comments are expressed in text form, but may include images or moving pictures.
The biggest role of such comments is to let people more easily share their evaluations, feelings, opinions and the like with regard to contents such as Internet news articles, and also to provide a user feedback to content providers. In addition, comments sometimes convey evaluation reports on a specific content (mainly, a commercial content such as description on a certain product) from the viewpoint of consumers. In such cases, comments are of economic value as they are.
In reality, however, such comments have adverse effects as well as good effects. As an example, there has been an increase in the number of people who take advantage of anonymity on the Internet and habitually post irresponsible or groundless vituperation or snide remarks (so-called ‘malicious comments’). Moreover, such malicious comments drive some people to take legal proceedings against those people for libel. Thus, several attempts have been made to minimize the adverse effects of comments.
One of them is a log-in requirement system, which is now broadly known. The log-in requirement system asks a user to fill out a brief personal data form including a name, a social security number, etc., and allows only users having a log-in ID and a password given from an Internet portal site of interest to leave comments. This system has somewhat reduced malicious comments, compared to the case where people did not have to log in to leave comments. However, there has not been much success in reducing malicious comments because people could still leave comments without submitting their real name.
There are other approaches to resolve adverse effects of comments. One of them was to designate swear words or abusive languages as key words to be censored such that posting any comment including those censored key words to a bulletin board may be automatically banned. And, there was another approach for an Internet portal site operator to delete a malicious comment of concern in response to a report from other users or to restrict the access of a person who posted that comment. Despite the efforts with censored key words, malicious commenters could still continue their misbehaviors in indirect and circuitous ways as long as they want. Also, sanctioning malicious commenters upon receipt of a report from other users is too late an action that can be done only after a particular user has already been hurt mentally or emotionally.
According to the statistical record provided by one of major Internet portal sites in Korea, www.naver.com, at least 4% of all comments on the up-to-date Internet news articles were turned out to be malicious comments, and thus deleted. Considering that there may be much more malicious comments that were not actually reported, one can assume that many users might have suffered from very serious mental/emotional damages due to those malicious comments. Therefore, the above methods for controlling malicious comments are confronted with the limitations as noted above.
In order to resolve the aforementioned problems, ‘Restrictive personal identification and authentication system’ according to Article 44(5)(Bulletin board users' personal identification) of the Korean law for promoting use of information and communication networks and protecting personal information online has become effective since Jul. 27, 2007. The restrictive personal identification and authentication system requires a user to go through a one-time personal identification procedure, provided that a comment written by a particular individual is open to others. The main purpose of the restrictive personal identification and authentication system is to strongly encourage people to become more conscious and responsible for their writing malicious comments in the Internet space, but it could not be the ultimate solution for prohibiting people from posting malicious comments. In reality, even some web sites that employ the real-name registration system for Internet access are not free from malicious comments. Results of a recent survey asking people ‘Do you think the restrictive personal identification and authentication system is effective to root out malicious comments?,’ indicate that 3,217 (64%) out of a total of 5,027 Internet users answered that it would not be that much effective, and only 1,568 Internet users (31.2%) answered that it would be very effective (This survey was conducted by another Internet portal site in Korea, Dcinside (www.dcinside.com), from Jul. 27, 2007 through Aug. 5, 2007). This suggests that the restrictive personal identification and authentication system shows limits to control malicious comments.
The foregoing discussion in the background section is to provide general background information, and does not constitute an admission of prior art.